Word: franca
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...home to hundreds of tribes and has nearly 500 different dialects, it struck some members of the Papua New Guinea Executive Council that a new national name might plausibly come from pidgin-the colorful fractured English (mirror, for example, is glas bilong lukluk) that has become the lingua franca of the area. To test popular reaction, the council recently decided to name the proposed national airline Air Niugini. Papuans complained that this might be a happy solution for New Guineans but it was a slight to them. Not so, said the council. Besides being pidgin, niugini is made...
Pidgin. That theory receives its first book-length substantiation with the publication of Black English (Random House, $10). In it, Linguist J.L. Dillard of the University of Puerto Rico describes how slaves were forced to develop their own lingua franca because traders usually separated groups speaking the same language in order to hinder communication and thereby prevent revolts. The slaves taught each other pidgin varieties of their masters' language...
Music, the lingua franca of the young, has become the special medium of the Jesus movement. Godspell, a bright, moving musical written by students and based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew, is a sellout hit off-Broadway. The rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, bound for Broadway next fall, is already a bestselling record album; at New York City's Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church recently, a minister smilingly baptized a baby "In the name of the Father, the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ Superstar." Amazing Grace, Put Your Hand in the Hand and My Sweet Lord...
...know that the streets of Karachi are lined with gold? Do you want to take back that gold? Then raise your hands and join me." He was first jailed in 1948, when he demonstrated against Pakistan Founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah for proclaiming Urdu the new nation's lingua franca...
...Italy's most renowned contemporary playwright, and while he is little known in the U.S., 45 European theaters have produced his works in the past year alone, including performances in Germany, England, France and most of the Iron Curtain countries. Until recently, he and his blonde actress-wife Franca Rame could command combined annual earnings of $120,000. While Fo's plays still garner respectable royalties, he settles for $11.20 per diem in Grand Pantomime, which comes close to the average ticket price for a Broadway musical...